He said: “We have important information-sharing relationships around the globe with countries. We benefit, our partners benefit.

“We want to make sure we can maintain those relationships by having a vigorous flow of information, a bilateral flow of information.

“But if countries implement in their telecom networks that are doing 5G untrusted vendors, we’re going to have to reassess how we share information with them to ensure that we’re not compromising that very vital data.”

The warning comes as countries around the world upgrade their telecommunication systems to the 5G network, NAN reports.

On Tuesday, the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) announced that it had approved the spectrum for the trial of 5G services in the country.

Huawei is expected to play a leading role in the supply of both the hardwares and software of the technology considering its strong presence in the sector.

According to reports, the telecom companies in Nigeria currently rely substantially on Huawei for their infrastructure, including hardware and software.

The U.S. is a key intelligence-sharing partner of Nigeria, especially in the latter’s fight against terrorism, illicit financial flows and allied cross-border crimes.

Strayer noted that 5G would provide consumers, including businesses and governments, with up to 100 times faster connections than 4G networks.

He said tens of billions of new devices would be connected to the Internet in the next few years, sharing massive data that would be critical to national security, human rights and economic prosperity.

“Because of the essential role that vendors play in networks and their maintenance, they could be ordered to undermine network security.